FF7: Random Bits 04
by Nashiil
Summary: Cloud gets to experience all the fun of dealing with Zack, who is higher than a kite after having a tooth pulled.
1. Chapter 1

_Finally, another installment of my Random Bits series for FF7. Sorry it's taking so long between updates. I'll try to get these out in a more timely manner._

Random Bits: FF7 04

Chapter 1

[Setting - Zack is having a bothersome tooth pulled, and Cloud has been elected the lucky man to pick him up from the appointment.]

[Location - The Infirmary - Dental Surgeon's Office waiting room - Just passed noon. ]

The office door opened and a nurse poked her head into the waiting room. "General Strife? He's awake and just about ready to go," she said.

Cloud paused the cat video he had been watching and stuffed the phone into his pocket. How many videos had he watched in the last forty minutes? He'd lost track after the tenth one, not that it mattered. What else was the internet for, if not for watching cat videos and looking at memes?

Besides, there wasn't a doctor's or dentist's office on the planet that had anything actually interesting to do while you waited, unless you enjoyed reading informational pamphlets on embarrassing diseases (you know which ones I mean), reading ratty, out of date magazines which always seemed to be missing pages, or had the one interesting article cut out, or watching the informational programming which always seemed to have a segment about bodily functions like 'Everybody Pees'. If you were feeling particularly bored, you could always have a go at the ever present Bead Rollercoaster, or if you were really lucky, the 6-in-1 playcube activity center (with counting gears, abacus, tic-tack-toe, and _three_ different bead play options!)

Cloud had actually been considering giving the activity center a go, but a toddler had already laid claim to it, and had obviously not been taught that sharing is caring.

"The extraction went well," the nurse informed Cloud as she led him to one of the many exam rooms lining the hallway, "Er, after we got him sedated."

"Ah, yeah..." Cloud mumbled awkwardly.

Getting Zack to agree to have his festering molar pulled had required a great deal of convincing, which involved Cloud Angeal, and three 1st Class ELITEs physically manhandling him from the training field all the way to the exam chair.

One of the new 3rd Class ELITEs had been attempting his first Shift, when the abscess around Zack's rotting tooth had finally ruptured. One minute Zack had been standing there normally (aside from the swollen lump on his left cheek), and the next minute he was projectile vomiting like a geyser.

The smell had been horrific. A Smell Connoisseur, had such a thing existed, would have described the stench as a full-bodied, toothsome malodor that had not so subtle overtones of fleshy putrefaction with smoother hints of vegetable decay and, for some reason, brimstone. The Average Joe would have described it as akin to a stew of week old corpses simmering gently over a burning trash heap.

Cloud and Angeal had each grabbed Zack by an arm and started dragging him to the Infirmary. Zack had Shifted and dug all four paws into the ground, screeching and twisting, spraying puss and rot-stink like a busted water main.

All the frantic movement had only served to stir up the smell to an intensity that caused it to physically manifest itself as a cloud of fog in distinctive color of Baby Poop Green. It had swirled around the three struggling figures, trying to choke them with greasy, fetid tendrils that went straight for the gag reflex.

Three 2nd Class ELITEs had jumped in to help, demonstrating great constitutional fortitude and earning themselves two days of no drills. Between the five of them, they had dragged Zack along, escorted (and slightly obscured) by the sinister green cloud. Their progress was marked by the caustic effects of the The Smell. Paint had peeled, plants had withered, metal had tarnished, wood had blackened, carpets had curled, and two plastic chairs had gone runny by the time Zack had finally been deposited in the exam chair. The Smell had been banished to the waiting room, where it had lingered only briefly before meeting an untimely end at the hands of a nurse armed with a can of air freshener.

Cloud entered the room and found Zack slouching in the the exam chair, grinning widely at a point several hundred yards away. If his eyes had been anymore unfocused, they would have been looking in opposite directions.

"Hey, Zack," Cloud called, with a slow, exaggerated wave.

Glassy eyes slowly floated into positions suggesting reasonable focus, and the light of recognition flicked on.

"Heeeeeeyy...look a' this!" Zack slurred proudly as he waved his arms around over his head.

"Er, that's great, Zack,"

"Innit tha' cool?"

"Uhh, yeah. Good job. Are you feeling okay? You look a little out of it." Cloud remarked in an amused tone.

Zack just gave him a pumpkin grin in reply and blinked, which would have been completely ordinary, had both of his eyes actually blinked in unison.

Wondering just how doped up Zack was, Cloud leaned close and very deliberately said "Knob."

Zack's goofy grin faltered for a split second as a look of vague unease flitted very briefly across his features.

"Wow! You really _are_ out of it!" Cloud chuckled with an amused smile.

Zack watched through a drug-induced haze as Cloud turned to speak with the dental surgeon. He giggled to himself as Cloud's head turned away, but his mouth stayed where it was, continuing to speak while hanging in mid-air. Every time the mouth spoke the word 'and', a tiny wooden bird on a stick sprang in and out of the mouth like a Cuckoo clock, but instead making of the classic _cuckoo! _ sound, the melodic whistle had been replaced by the voice of Samuel L. Jackson shouting 'Cuckoo, Mother(censored)!'

Cloud had turned back to Zack, and was asking him something, but Zack wasn't really paying much attention. He was too busy watching Cloud's facial features shuffle themselves randomly around his face. Both eyebrows and one eye charged at the nose trying to invade their territory. For a moment, it looked as if the nose was going to win, but then the other eye and the mouth swooped in and drove it back to its proper place. There was a moment of peace, before the nose twitched and then everything started warping and sagging like a Salvador Dali painting.

Zack laughed as Cloud's last remaining facial feature, his left eye, slid down his face like a raindrop, gathered at his chin, then finally dripped on to his shirt front to join its brothers. The other 'facey' parts cheered and wiggled around before beginning the climb back up.

Zack completely lost it when Cloud's mouth flapped up into the air, stuck itself to the face of the exam room wall clock like a Colorform sticker (80's babies, you know what I'm talking about), and started making rude noises.

"You should probably monitor him for the next twenty four hours, since he seems to be having trouble with both the sedative and the anesthesia." the surgeon instructed while Zack whooped with laughter and went _Thhpppbbbttt!_ at the wall clock.

"Obviously," Cloud remarked wryly as he pulled one of Zack's arms across his shoulders and heaved him out of the chair. Zack snickered, mumbling something about balloons as he was led unsteadily out the door.

Cloud sighed and shook his head. It was going to be a long afternoon.


	2. Chapter 2

_All right, here we go with Chapter 2! _

* * *

Random Bits: FF7 04

Chapter 2

[Setting - Zack is having a bothersome tooth pulled, and Cloud has been elected the lucky man to pick him up from the appointment.]

[Location - The Infirmary - Zack and Cloud are making their way down the hallway. ]

Cloud patiently lead Zack down the long corridor of exam rooms towards the Infirmary waiting room, doing his best to keep him upright, while Zack stumbled along like he had two rubber legs and was trying out for life time membership to the Ministry of Silly Walks. Zack would most likely been able to walk a semi straight line, if he hadn't been too busy giggling and staring at Cloud.

Cloud's head had turned into a balloon. It was big, and bright yellow, and it had his face drawn on it in black marker. The drawing was crude, nothing more than a collection of simple lines, yet it looked exactly like Cloud, down to the line doing duty as the mouth matching his familiar frown.

The balloon bobbled and jinked as he walked, trailing a few inches behind him from the string that disappeared into the neck of his shirt. His head bounced a bit on its string as Cloud stopped to readjust his grip on Zack.

Zack stifled a laugh, reached up, and slowly batted Cloud's head, watching it drift sideways, then back.

"Please stop."

Zack sniggered and did it again. Repeatedly

"Can you-? Hey...knock it off-! Stop that...hey-!" Cloud stammered, trying to fend off the playful slaps as his head bobbed frantically. He lost his grip on Zack, who slid to the floor with a whoop.

The sketch of his face frowned down at Zack. "What was all that about?" he asked as his head slowly rotated 360 degrees on his string neck.

Zack looked at him with glassy, dilated eyes and exclaimed as if sharing a private joke, "Dude, your head!"

Cloud gave him a patient look, reminding himself that Zack was still high on sedatives and anesthesia. Nothing he said was going to make any kind of sense. Cloud heaved him to his feet and continued lugging him down the hall.

Zack forgot about Cloud's balloon head as he concentrated on trying to walk. His legs had turned into rubber bands, and he was having a hard time keeping them coordinated. His left leg kept stretching out really far ahead, while his right stretched out and back in random directions every two seconds.

Navigating the waiting room was a nightmare. Zack's legs kept getting tangled in random chair legs, and trying to snap anyone who walked by. This meant that Zack was really unstable and kept almost falling on his face. It was then that he had an Idea. Unfortunately, it was one of those Ideas that only seem good because you are drunk. It was a Drunk Idea. His brain cells gathered together, still marinating in chemical bliss, and started bouncing ideas around.

_Hey guys, listen...it's the legs...Yeah, the legs! It's all down to the legs!_

_So?_

_So it takes two to walk, right?_

_Yeah..._

_But we keep falling._

_Yeah...so if we get rid of the legs, we won't fall?_

_Yeah! No! No, then we can't walk! _

_But we also can't fall..._

_True...But, wait, wait! If we keep falling with two legs, then how about we_ add more legs_?_

_More? That's a stupid idea!_

_No, guys, listen._ listen! _Like what if ... What if we had_ four _legs instead of two? _

_Why four?_

_Well, tables have four legs. Have you ever seen a table fall down?_

_No, but we've never seen a table walk either._

_Yeah, but we've never seen one_ fall_. And do you know why? _

_No._

_Because...because tables are stable!_

_Hey, that rhymes! _

_Tables are stable! _

_Okay, four legs it is!_

The Idea made perfect sense, so Zack Shifted.

Cloud abruptly found himself trying to hold on to a giant black wolf with four spaghetti legs. While four legs did lend a certain amount of increased stability, it also meant that the Brain had more legs to sort out and keep coordinated.

Zack managed to stand perfectly balanced for all of five seconds, before he attempted to take a step and did a frantic, high-speed impression of Bambi on ice. Cloud tried to grab him, missed, and could only watch helplessly as Hurricane Zack stuck.

Legs went everywhere as he skittered and slipped wildly across the waiting room, crashing through rows of chairs, skidding back and forth across the room like a furry rocket, tossing furniture in all directions, obliterating the activity center, knocking over the sign reading "No Running" and doing a perfect drift through the magazine rack before his front legs went out from under him and he slid into the hallway carpet on his face.

Cloud looked at the swath of destruction, then looked at the nurse who was just a pair of terrified eyes barely peeking over the edge of her station desk. He stood absolutely still for a moment, just in case the earth was going to be kind enough to oblige and open up and swallow him.

_Yeah, I'm going to have to pass._

_But I saved you! Twice!_

_The best I can do is a little crack, maybe big enough for a foot._

_Forget it. See if I ever save you again!_

Cloud called down to Maintenance to come clean up as he picked his way through the rubble and grabbed Zack, who was standing in the hallway leading to the Lobby, barking at his reflection in the big glass windows.

"_Hey!Hey! Hey, you!_" Zack barked at the big black wolf on the other side of the window. "_Hey! I see you! Hey! Hey!_" Cloud's balloon head bobbed up behind the other wolf like a yellow harvest moon rising.

"_Moon! Moon! Moon, moon, moon!_" He turned and looked at Cloud as he grabbed a handful of his fur to stop him from running off.

Zack looked at the yellow, frowning balloon and howled, _"Moon, moon, moo-oooooooooonnnn!"_

"_Shhhhhh!_ _Stop that!"_ Cloud hissed at him in ELITE. "_Let's go home. Come on." _ He began tugging him down the hallway towards the Lobby.

Zack seemed to have gained enough coordination to allow him to walk, or at least stumble around without falling. He was quite proud of himself. The sun was shining brightly through the window, looking pretty fly in its black sunglasses as it waved merrily. It's bright rays fell on the smiling tulips lining the hallway, swaying from side to side in peppy rhythm as they sang, while birds in snappy top hats chased away rain clouds and threw conffetti. Zack started prancing and singing along.

Cloud winced as one of Zack's giant doggo clod-hoppers landed on his foot. He did his best to keep his feet out of the way as Zack pranced along beside him like a drunk spider tap-dancing on a trampoline and singing 'Tiptoe through the Tulips'.

As they neared the Lobby, Cloud began to realize that there was no way he was going to drag Hecking High Zack from the Main Building, all the way to the parking lot. They made to the Lobby, and Cloud pulled Zack over to one of the clusters of comfy looking chairs. He looked at Zack and said sternly in ELITE, "_Sit!_"

Years of ingrained military training planted Zack's fluffy butt on the carpet without even asking his brain for permission.

"_Stay!_" Cloud added as Zack rolled his head and looked at him upside down with his tongue hanging out.

"Good Moon Moon!"

Zack watched as Cloud trotted away to the Reception Desk to arrange for a car, balloon head being towed jerkily behind him. The lights in the Lobby were bright, shining down from neat rows, while the chairs in front of him were lined up, marching into the distance. He thought he heard the quiet susurration of a large crowd waiting in anticipation. More lights suddenly snapped on, and from the orchestra pit below the stage, a familiar ragtime tune began to play. Someone tossed him a top hat and fancy cane, and Zack rose to his hind legs as a hush fell over the crowd...

"The car will be here shortly, General" The receptionist said, hanging up the phone. "Lieutenant Haskins said it should be about five minutes and...um," she trailed off.

Cloud looked at her for a few moments waiting for her to give him the rest of the details. She kept looking at him, then glancing at something to his left. The skin on the back of his skull tingled, bunching up as if trying to physically turn his head itself. His other senses got in on the action and started drawing his attention to other small signs that something was off.

There were more people than usual hanging about. Sure, the Lobby was rarely empty, but the people who came in were usually just passing through, moving purposefully, not hesitantly passing by, or outright loitering alone or in groups. And they definitely didn't stand around with their phones out as if recording something. And there was a song playing, but as far as Cloud knew, there was no radio in the Lobby...

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose, and steeling himself for what he might see. He turned, and was gut punched by the same feeling a parent gets when they turn around to see that their toddler has discarded their clothes and is doing a buck-naked impromptu performance of The Nutcracker in the middle of the grocery store.

Some idiot was two verses in to 'Hello! Ma Baby!' and Zack, tongue lolling in a wolf grin was Michigan J. Frogging his way back and forth across the seating area.

Cloud hid his face in his hands.

_Are you sure you can't just swallow me?_

_Sorry, pal. No can do. _

"Go about your business!" Cloud snarled at the assembly. "And you, Bill Roberts," Cloud said pointing at PFC Eugene Perkins, the one who had been singing, "You get double Fire Watch duty for a week!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Perkins said with a disheartened salute.

"If you get that video to my desk in the next fifteen minutes, I'll knock it down to two days." Cloud said as he snatched Zack by the scruff before he could make another pass.

"Sir, yes, sir!" came the grateful reply.

"Come on, Moon Moon!" Cloud said, dragging Zack to the Lobby door just as the car pulled up.

To Be Continued.

* * *

_Please bear with me as I slowly get these chapters posted. I usually only get one afternoon a week to sit down and write. _


	3. Chapter 3

FF7: Random Bits 04

Chapter 3

[Setting: Zack is having a bothersome tooth pulled, and Cloud is elected the lucky man to pick him up from his appointment.]

[Location: Just outside the Main Building - Early afternoon]

Cloud helped Zack, who was back to humming "Tip-Toe Through The Tulips", to the waiting car, where he was faced with a new problem: How to load a giant black wolf into a small sedan. In hindsight, he probably should have requested one of the equipment transports instead of a passenger car.

After a few moments of pondering the issue, Cloud decided to do what was known as a Shift Reset. Occasionally, SOLDIERs would get stuck in their ELITE forms. It usually happened to new ELITEs, who were still getting the hang of Shifting, but it also afflicted even experienced ELITEs if they were extremely exhausted or rendered unconscious.

There were two methods for performing a Shift Reset. The first involved an experienced ELITE using their telepathic link to go in and poke the part of the other ELITE's brain that controlled Shifting. It required a deft mental hand and a fair amount of accuracy if they didn't want to turn the other guy's brain into something that resembled a porridge emulsion. The second method required little accuracy, was much faster, and could be used in any situation. It had actually been discovered by accident when Zack had been attempting to wake an ELITE who had fallen asleep during class. Due to the particularly concussive nature of this method, it had become known as 'hitting the reset button'.

Considering the situation, Cloud went with the faster, easier method. He pulled wobbly Wolf Zack around to the passenger side, opened the door, slapped him sharply on the back of the skull, then shoved the now mildly concussed Human Zack into the passenger's seat and shut the door.

Zack sat in the passenger's seat, staring blankly at his oddly shaped paws while his faculties held an emergency meeting to argue over what shape he was currently in. Things went down hill after Sight and Memory got into a row over who was the least trustworthy, especially after several beers and what happened at last year's New Year's Eve party with 'that girl' that ended with them having to explain why Zack woke up in a back alley cuddling a broom.

From there it turned into a free for all, complete with shouting, random memory files being thrown around in an accusing manner, figurative finger pointing, table flipping, and someone setting a fire in the rubbish bin. It was then that Zack's Brain farted, and Memory forgot why he was trying to throttle Sight, but he _did_ finally remember what shape Zack was in. The other Faculties cheered, sheepishly avoiding looking each other in the metaphorical eyes.

Ability pulled Attention out of the wreckage of a flipped table, Reason conscientiously put ou the fire, and Volition fetched Speech out from behind the potted plant where he had been hiding. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, they all went off for a relaxing group smoke.

Zack finally realized that those soft, noodley things on the ends of his paws were fingers. That meant that those weren't paws, but hands. Oh, he was back in his normal shape! He watched as Cloud settled in behind the steering wheel, his balloon head floating up to rest at a haphazard angle against the vehicle's roof liner.

Zack was about to ask him how he could see his head rolling against the roof like that, when Cloud put the car in drive and it drove off without them, leaving them sitting in mid-air. Zack wondered if this was how Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy felt every time they rode in the Invisible Boatmobile.

Zack's musings were interrupted as they suddenly hurtled forward. The wind whistled with the speed of the passage as they rocketed right for the back of the car, which was stopped at the end of the driveway. Zack yelped and shut his eyes, bracing himself for the impact that would surely laminate them both accross the entire back end of the car.

The sensation of movement ceased seconds later, and Zack hesitantly opened his eyes. He was sitting safely in the passenger's seat next to Cloud, who seemed completely oblivious to what had just happened as he joined the light traffic making its way along the main road.

Cloud wondered if maybe he shouldn't have just had Zack stay in his on-Base apartment. He glanced over at Zack, who was busy slowly licking the passenger side window. The people in the car beside them were trying not to stare. It was a monumental task, though. They did a stellar job of trying not to look while Zack busied himself with rolling the window up and down, the friction causing a rather humorous warping his facial features.

Cloud used his driver side window controls to roll Zack's window up, then switch off the power to the passenger side window. Zack looked disappointed for a fraction of a second, then went back to making window faces and using the glass to puff out his cheeks. The people in the other car were in various stages of laughter, including the driver.

Cloud quickly changed lanes, possibly saving the lives of everyone in the other car. He reached over and tried to pull Zack away from the window, but accidentally shoved him. Zack's face hit the window with a thump.

"You okay, Zack?" Cloud asked, voice slightly muffled on account of the fact that the side of the balloon with his face on it was resting against the roof liner.

Zack, seemingly unaffected, gave him a goofy grin in reply and, grabbing Cloud's head, began rubbing it vigorously in his hair, giggling something about balloons and static.

Cloud hit the brakes, swerving to the curb with a surprised cry. Zack whooped as the car came to a sharp halt but he and Cloud shot forward out of the car, then snapped backwards as if tied by an invisible rubber band. They yo-yo'd back and forth, in and out of the car for a few moments before stopping.

"Again!" Zack shouted gleefully, while Cloud gave him a perplexed look that bordered on annoyed with just a hint of 'I think I just pooped myself'. Cloud tightened Zack's seat belt, seriously wondering if he should have perhaps requested an adult sized child's safety seat.

He settled for turning on the radio, hoping it would keep Zack entertained and take his focus off the weird obsession with his head.

They made it a whole block before Cloud heard a quiet sniffle beside him.

"Are you okay? What's wrong? Does your mouth hurt-?" Cloud asked, trying to watch the road and Zack at the same time.

"It's just so...so..._beautiful!_ Zack bawled.

"What-?"

Zack pointed to the radio, and continued sobbing about the emotional depth and philosophical complexity of "Genie in a Bottle".

"Are you seriously crying over a pop song?" Cloud asked, incredulous.

"Weeeeenieeee in a booottttllleeee!" Zack howled at the top of his lungs.

"Shhh-! Those aren't even the words!" Cloud hissed as he cringed so hard in embarrassment that his his head almost disappeared into his torso. Seconds later his head shot out from between his shoulder blades and almost hit the roof when Zack suddenly went from despondent sobbing to hysterical laughter.

Cloud made the mistake of asking, "You okay?" as he stopped for a light change at the intersection.

Zack stopped laughing and turned, the movement slow, and utterly smooth, as if his head was on well oiled bearings. His face was utterly slack, eyes blank and staring. It was the same look Cloud had seen many times at the market. At the fish seller's stall. On the faces of the carp.

Seconds ticked by.

"Zack?"

"_BOOM SHAKA-LAKA_!" Zack shouted with absolutely no warning. The look of manic glee on his face made him look like an animatronic puppet only found in old pizza places geared towards children.

Cloud lost it. He doubled over the steering wheel, laughing so hard that his vocal cords gave up trying to produce any kind of sound. His Silent Laugh was broken by the impatient horn blast of the vehicle behind him.

"_BOOM SHAKA-LAKA!_" Zack shouted in reply.

Cloud bit back his laughter and drove on, desperately trying to focus on not hitting other drivers while Zack kept randomly shouting 'BOOM SHAKA-LAKA!'

They made it to the next intersection, where Cloud had to wait in the turning lane for the little green arrow to give them permission to make a left hand turn. Zack had fallen silent again, and was now staring at the crosswalk, wonder and disbelief fighting for dominance over his face.

Zack couldn't believe what he was seeing. A unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail had trotted out into the crosswalk, its diamond horn glittering in the sunlight. It walked right up to their car and waved a hoof at them enthusiastically. Zack glanced at Cloud, who was looking at him with an odd expression sketched on his yellow balloon face. It could have been a smile, but the unsteady hand that had done the doodling had given the mouth line a slight wiggle on the end that left it open to artistic interpretation.

"What is it?" Cloud asked, his head tilting against the roof liner in what might have been a quizzical angle in a person with a normal head.

Zack's mouth worked mutely, words refusing to come, while he frantically stabbed a finger at the windshield.

"Yes, I see it," Cloud replied with a hint of amusement. "And look, it's waving at you!"

Zack looked back to see that yes, the unicorn was still waving at him. He waved back, a bit hesitantly. The unicorn looked down its teeth at Zack in an ecstatic equine grin. It tossed its shimmering mane, saluted, and farted out a stream of rainbow glitter as it rocketed up into the sky.

Cloud made the long awaited left hand turn while Zack stared out the window and said in an awed whisper, "_Boom Shaka-Laka_..."

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

_Last Chapter, guys! A big thanks to everyone for being so patient with my slow updates! This wraps up FF7 RB 4, so on to FF7 RB 5!_

* * *

Chapter 4

[Setting: Zack is having a bothersome tooth pulled, and Cloud is elected the lucky man to pick him up from his appointment.]

[Location: The car Cloud borrowed - Mid afternoon, almost at 7th Heaven]

Cloud felt nothing but relief as he turned down the street leading to the 7th Heaven. His enhanced vision could pick out the familiar store front and the sign that shone in the afternoon light like the beacon of salvation beckoning a lost soul home. In the seat beside him, Zack was in the midst of a heated argument with his hand. What he was arguing about was a mystery, as he was currently shouting in 'Boom Shaka-Laka'. The phrase had long ago stopped tickling Cloud's Funny Bone, and had begun to grate on his Last Nerve. The dragon part of him uncoiled and was pacing, tail lashing peevishly as it hissed in utter vexation and tried to convince him that it would be a very good idea if they ate Zack. Cloud tried to shut out the dragon's ranting as he drove as fast as he dared while still staying mostly within the posted speed limit. He had no desire to be pulled over with an angry dragon in his head and a friend high on general anesthesia, and have to say "Sorry, Officer. I was speeding so I wouldn't have to eat my friend." while Zack shouted _BOOM SHAKA-LAKA!_ the whole time.

Cloud gratefully pulled up to the bar. He got out quickly and wrestled Zack out of his seat belt. Zack was not not on speaking terms with his hand. Cloud had thought that drawing a little face on Zack's hand would keep him entertained so he wouldn't keep licking the window. The hand puppet idea fell into the Cloud's mental list under the heading Things That Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time. Zack had started out talking enthusiastically to his hand, then making out with his hand, and then came the intensely emotional break up. Cloud had been witness to the entire Courtship Process from hook up, to break up, to appearance on family tabloid scandal talk show compressed into the space of three minutes.

Zack was frowning so hard at his hand that the corners of his mouth could have almost been deemed a tripping hazard. Cloud couldn't help but smile at the sight as he shut the car door and pulled Zack's arm across his shoulders to help steady him. "Don't worry, Zack, " Cloud tried to soothe him, "At least you don't owe child support."

Zack _harrumphed _ and glared at his hand. It blinked back at him and sneered as Cloud helped him inside. The door opened like a mouth, rolling out a long tongue like a red carpet welcoming an esteemed guest. They stepped through, the potted trumpet shrub in the corner played a brief fanfare, and the door closed with a genteel burp.

Tifa was behind the bar, getting clean glasses ready for when the bar opened. She began speaking with Cloud, but Zack wasn't paying attention to the conversation because

a small Sephiroth had just scampered down his arm and seated itself on the hand Cloud was griping Zack's wrist with. Zack stared at it. It smiled almost benignly at him before pulling out its sword, darting up Cloud's shoulder and, after pausing to giggle mischievously, sliced the string tethering Cloud's balloon head to his body.

Zack gasped as if sucking up all the air in the room and stood by helplessly as the yellow balloon with Cloud's face on it slowly floated up. Right into the briskly spinning blades of the ceiling fan, where it met its end with a loud _pop!_

Zack shrieked and looked from the falling bits of yellow latex to Cloud's neck. There was a hissing sound, and a new balloon rapidly inflated and floated up out of Cloud's collar, bouncing on the end of its freshly tied string.

Cloud was filling Tifa in on the details of how the appointment had gone when Zack gasped like a set of dying bagpipes. They both looked at Zack as he loosed a lung-shredding shriek that threatened to liquify their eardrums.

"What on earth-?" Tifa began as Zack all but gibbered with relief and grabbed at Cloud's head.

"He's been like that ever since I picked him up," Cloud replied, pulling Zack's frantic hands away from his head. "He's got this weird obsession with my head. You should have seen him when I picked him up!"

"I can only imagine," Tifa commented wryly.

Zack looked at Cloud and whimpered "Boom Shaka-Laka?" in the same tone one would use to ask 'are you alright?'

"Don't ask," Cloud said flatly as Tifa raised an eyebrow in question. "Let's just get him upstairs so he can sleep it off."

Tifa pulled Zack's left arm across her shoulders, and helped Cloud walk Zack towards the bar.

"Are you sure he's okay?" she asked, concerned as Zack went "_Wheeeeee_!" and started making random video game noises when she lifted the flip up counter top.

"Yeah, he's actually looking a lot better than when I first picked him up," Cloud grunted as he turned sideways and maneuvered Zack behind the counter.

"How can you tell?" Tifa grunted, giving Zack a helpful push as he decided to come to a dead stop halfway through the bar access door to stare around the room.

"Well, both of his eyes are looking in the same direction, and he's not falling down every half step."

"I'll take your word for it." Tifa said as Zack looked back and forth between her and Cloud, laughing hysterically.

The magical rainbow portal they had entered deposited them in an alternate universe where everything was the same, except the bar now had an odd 16-bit look to it. One might even go so far as to describe it as 'pre-rendered'. Zack turned his head to mention the observation to Cloud, and bust out laughing. Both of his friends had turned into bulky, low polygon, 3D versions of themselves. Their bodies were made of simple shapes, and they didn't even have hands, just stumpy hooves on the ends of their arms.

Polygon Cloud turned to give Zack an unreadable look, Zack jerked his face in the other direction to keep from being stabbed in the face by a spear of polygon hair, and almost lost an eye to a polygon tiddy. Tifa patted Zack with a hand stump, and he started laughing all over again. He continued to giggle as they shuffled up the pre-rendered stairs. The confined space barely left enough room for one person, let alone three, and this caused a storm of frantic clipping as various parts of Cloud and Tifa passed through the walls and themselves.

Zack's brain, still reeling from the general anesthesia, found the whole thing highly amusing, which was nothing of note, considering that in his current state, he would have laughed at the color of dryer lint. One of Cloud's hoof hands clipped through Zack's neck, while Tifa's face clipped through his head, and that was when it went from hysterically funny, to bowel twistingly unsettling. Zack blanched, the color draining out of his face like a flushed toilet as he got a good look at the inside of Tifa's head. He was about to scream when everything went black for half a second as the scene transitioned, leaving them standing in the pre-rendered hallway, all nice and separate.

Wilting with relief, Zack allowed himself to be led down the hall towards the bedroom. They met with a temporary delay when Tifa got stuck on the wall next to the bedroom door. They had to wait while she aimlessly turned in circles and glitched against the wall before finally getting unstuck. Cloud opened the door, leaving Zack wondering how one turned a door knob with a hand that lacked fingers, or even a wrist, and they stepped back into the normal world.

Cloud sat Zack on his bed by the window, where it had been ever since Zack had gotten lonely in his apartment on Base, and Tifa and Cloud had insisted that he move in. He ended up sharing a room with Cloud after he and Tifa got into a row over Zack not wanting her go to the costly expense of renovating the bar to add a new room. Cloud had stepped in with the offer to share his room before Zack ended up having to be carried upstairs in a bucket.

Tifa went back down to the bar to get a glass of water for Zack, while Cloud tried to get Zack comfortable. He pulled off Zack's boots, pushed him over onto the mattress, and was about to toss the blanket over him, when Zack abruptly sat back up with a cry of "Wait!"

"What? What is it?" Cloud asked, slightly startled at the outburst.

"I forgot to floss!"

"What?"

"I forgot to floss!

"You just had a tooth pulled! You don't need to floss right now-!," Cloud began as Zack jumped up.

Tifa returned, glass in hand and found Cloud arguing with an agitated Zack. "What's are you two doing?" she asked as she set the glass down on the desk.

"I forgot to floss," Zack babbled.

"You don't-!" Tifa started to say before Zack shoved Cloud's hands away and and started Flossing. Something told Cloud that the immediate future need to be preserved for future generations, so he whipped his phone out and started recording while Tifa gave him a disapproving frown. He noted, however, that she made no effort to step in and stop the shenanigans.

Zack started out Flossing slowly, as if testing his coordination, and then went a little faster. Cloud expected him to stop after the first five minutes or so, but to his surprise, Zack began to speed up. His arms just kept moving faster and faster, becoming mere blurs as he Flossed as if his very life depended on it. Cloud feared that he was going to dislocate either a hip or a shoulder as the motion began to stir up a breeze. The wall calendar began flapping slowly, and random papers on Cloud's desk began to lift slightly. Cloud began to really worry when the curtains started fluttering. He swore he heard a faint whirring noise before Zack Flossed himself into exhaustion and collapsed backwards across his bed, snoring faintly.

"Well, color me impressed," Tifa whispered in admiration as they quietly left the room.

Zack woke a few hours later, jaw a little sore, but feeling much better than he had that morning. He had the vague and suspicious feeling that a lot things (most of them embarrassing) had happened, but darned if he could remember what they were. He sat up as Cloud came in to check on him.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah," Zack responded, his tone uncertain as he noticed the blank expression Cloud wore. He was very familiar with that look, or lack there of. Cloud usually had that look when he was hiding various emotions. By the way his mouth was tighter than usual at the corners, and the way his eyes were slightly crinkled at the corners, he finding _something_ funny. And it had to do with him. More specifically, something he had done.

"What happened?" Zack asked in such a way that his question covered multiple contexts.

"What do you remember?" Cloud asked, enigmatically.

Zack, feeling more and more uneasy, searched though the jumbled box of hazy memories. He described the events starting from waking up in the exam room, all the way until he Flossed himself to sleep. Cloud listened, not saying a word until Zack was finished. Now everything made sense, including Zack's fascination with Cloud's head.

They spent a few minutes laughing at some of the more outlandish hallucinations, and the more humorous things Zack had done on the way home. "But the best hallucination was the rainbow unicorn! It had a rainbow mane, an diamond horn, and get this: it flew by farting rainbow glitter!" Zack howled with laughter, wiping his streaming eyes.

Cloud chuckled with him for a few moments before stopping and saying in a dead serious tone, "The unicorn was real,"

The seriousness with which Cloud delivered the news hit Zack's ears like a granite slab. Silence rang loud in the room for a few heartbeats before Zack stuttered in disbelief and no small amount of suspicion that Cloud was pulling his leg, "It what...?"

"The unicorn was real. That was 3rd Class ELITE Eunice Cornelius, who just made his first Shift today."

Zack stared at Cloud, not sure of what to say, so he settled for nodding and saying "Well,_ Boom Shaka-Laka_!"

The End.


End file.
